Quick Summary
- New York jury awarded $2 million to a 22-year-old woman in the first malpractice lawsuit involving a detransitioner.
- Jurors found the psychologist and surgeon liable for failing to meet the standard of care during treatment.
- The case sets a precedent for other detransitioners seeking legal remedies.
A New York jury awarded $2 million to a 22-year-old woman who sued her former psychologist and plastic surgeon for malpractice over a double mastectomy she received at 16. The trial marked the first time a detransitioner’s malpractice case has gone before a jury and ended in a financial judgment.
The verdict, delivered last week by a six-member jury in New York Supreme Court in Westchester County, found both the psychologist and surgeon liable for failing to meet the standard of care in treating Fox Varian, who has identified as transgender at the time of the surgery but later detransitioned and no longer does, according to The Epoch Times.
Jurors awarded Varian $1.6 million for past and future pain and suffering and $400,000 for future medical expenses.
They determined the providers did not follow adequate protocols, including thorough communication and evaluation prior to performing surgery, and concluded these failures constituted a “departure from the standard of care.”
Varian’s mother, Claire Deacon, testified that she opposed the surgery but eventually gave consent after being warned her daughter might take her own life without it.
The court heard that the psychologist, Dr. Kenneth Einhorn, may have heightened these concerns, while defense attorneys argued that Varian had made self-harm threats before and that such fears were not instigated by her therapist.
The defendants argued that their clinical decisions followed existing guidelines and that Varian had expressed a strong desire to transition. The jury ultimately disagreed with their defense, siding with Varian on the claim of medical negligence.
The lawsuit did not question the general legality or medical appropriateness of gender-transition treatments for minors, but rather asserted that in Varian’s case, they were provided without sufficient scrutiny or coordination.
Varian v. Einhorn sets a precedent for other detransitioners seeking legal remedies. However, trial observers noted that attendance was minimal, with only two reporters present during proceedings.
Journalist Benjamin Ryan, who attended the full trial, stated that his detailed notes may be the only comprehensive public record of the event.
Ryan wrote on X that 28 detransitioner lawsuits have been filed in the United States to date. Varian’s case was the first among them to reach trial and result in a judgment in favor of the plaintiff.
“Quite a few of the detransitioner lawsuits have run up against strict statutes of limitation, such as the case against leading pediatric gender doctor Johanna Olson-Kennedy,” he wrote.
The ruling comes amid ongoing debates over medical interventions for gender dysphoria in minors and scrutiny of the practices followed by clinicians providing these treatments.
Clinicians have faced criticism for proceeding with irreversible interventions without comprehensive psychological evaluation or interdisciplinary oversight.
More than two dozen states have enacted policies banning the provision of body-mutilating sex-change surgeries and hormone drugs to minors. In recent years, European medical bodies, such as those in the United Kingdom, Sweden, and Norway, have reevaluated their approaches to treating children with gender dysphoria.
In 2024, the United Kingdom’s National Health Service instructed gender clinics to pause first appointments for kids under 18 following the formal review led by Dr. Hilary Cass, the retired former president of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health. Cass’s report found there is “no good evidence on the long-term outcomes of interventions to manage gender-related distress.”
